Make no mistake – crowdfunding campaigns take a significant amount of work, but if you’re serious about getting into business, then you should be willing to put in the time and energy necessary to promote your project.

Here’s what you need to know about starting a crowdfunding campaign:

Presale Your Way to Success

Crowdfunding has presented a significant change in how entrepreneurs evaluate and bring their products to life.

Like the personal computer brought computing to everyone, crowdfunding has put investing and funding in the hands of the masses.

Everyone knows the Statue of Liberty only stands on a granite plinth today because people donated funds for its purchase in 1884.

But back in 1713, the poet Alexander Pope translated Homer’s Iliad from Greek into English, by taking advance subscriptions from the public.

The project was a seven year project with a single volume produced each year.

Who knew the public would be so patient to get the ‘product’ they want?

This sentiment has even carried over into modern crowdfunding, with project creators successfully tapping into their pool of previous backers for new projects.

This has led to an increase in the number of people claiming to offer ‘Kickstarter campaign critiques’ and other marketing tips, to new project creators.

Some even claim they can help increase your Kickstarter ranking, for only a few bucks.

To avoid the ‘legwork’, many project creators pay for these services, only to find they don’t do anything for the project.

The most successful campaigns have prepared their whole marketing plan ahead of the crowdfunding campaign launch.

Footprinting the media and influencers who wrote about a similar campaign and then connecting with them for coverage either via twitter or by using tools like NinjaOutreach for influencer marketing (more on that here and here) and implementing a robust blogger outreach strategy so you can reach a highly targeted audience that your project would resonate with can’t be overemphasized.

And, during your campaign, you will want to amplify any articles that do getting published by boosting posts to pre-identified and pixelated audiences on Facebook and twitter.

Do not waste your lean startup funds; if you were flush with cash, you wouldn’t be asking for donations, would you?

Before you even start a crowdfunding campaign, you should spend up to three months raising awareness for your project.

By taking the time to plan your marketing, you’ll save money spent on shady services, grow a solid fan base, and be on track to reach your goals faster while building your brand awareness.

Set Yourself Up For Success

Again, this might sound silly, but it’s really important.

If you create a product that you can’t produce in a reasonable amount of time, if manufacturing costs are too high, or if you don’t plan for the future profitability of your company, you could end up having to deliver on your promise to all of your backers and not have anything to show for it.

In order to determine the viability of your idea, you may need to talk to business owners that are in a similar niche, product manufacturers, software developers, or those that are going to be directly involved in the production process of your project’s rewards.

Launching a successful crowdfunding campaign is exciting.

Even delivering orders to your project backers – despite all the work that it requires – can be exhilarating.

Final Thoughts

Crowdfunding is easily one of the best options for obtaining funding for your project or business idea in today’s market.

But that doesn’t mean that it will come easy, or that you will execute perfectly on the first campaign you launch.

This is why it’s necessary to create margin for yourself – both in terms of time and overhead.

It will almost certainly take longer than you think, and it will likely cost more than you think it will too.

And there are a lot of little details – like fulfillment – that can really come back to bite you later.

Don’t wait too long to start a project, but don’t rush into it without the right information either.

Project creators are buoyed by their fantastic ideas, by finding a community that shares their enthusiasm and the prospect of ‘easily’ bringing it to life.

But they rarely consider all the logistics hurdles that surround a successful crowdfunding campaign.

While it may look like the best way to get your ideas into the hands of the consumer, one must realize that it can fail just as easily.

One of the most common causes of failure is last-mile order fulfillment. Production and delivery of 100 orders may have been easily achievable with your initial logistics plan, but what happens when you are 20%, 100% or 1000% funded?

To help creators get around this, Floship developed a custom logistics program to help crowdfunders understand the complexities and costs involved in getting their products shipped.

With over 80% of all projects across platforms experiencing some delay in delivery, don’t you think your project should stand out in some way?

Knowing the ins-and-outs of crowdfunding can position your campaign for success and be the difference between success and barely covering the cost of production.

Christopher Moore is the Marketing Mixologist at Floship, a venture backed logistics startup based in Hong Kong that specializes in global eCommerce fulfillment and crowdfunding fulfillment. He’s been in and out of Asia since 1999, before joining Floship he was across the border in Shenzhen involved in various emerging tech oriented projects, including multiple successfully funded Kickstarter and Indiegogo campaigns focused on robotics and virtual reality.